The number of large classes in the Iowa City Community School District has grown at the high schools and shrunk at elementary schools, according to a preliminary report.

Preliminary 2014-15 district class size data shows 87 out of 688 high school classes included in the report exceeded the School Board's aspirational class-size goals, or upper limits for how many students should be in a class.

This includes 59 out of 290 classes at City High and 28 out of 398 classes at West High, increases at both schools compared with last year.

Data for Tate High, as well as student counts for some classes at City and West, were excluded from the report.

Superintendent Stephen Murley said the report, prepared with data from Oct. 1, likely will change as officials work to finalize counts for release in February. He said officials prepared the preliminary data to present to the School Board Tuesday.

Last year's report includes counts of core high school classes over the size limit, excluding non-core classes such as performance music and physical education.

Those counts show a total of 38 high school core classes — 11 out of 301 core classes at City and seven out of 401 core classes at West — were too large last year.

The School Board in 2013 approved its aspirational goals for class sizes: 24 students for kindergarten through second grade; 28 students for third through sixth grade; 30 students in junior high; and 32 students in high school.

Officials also monitor lower limits on class sizes, avoiding classes smaller than 16 students for kindergarten through second grade, 20 students for third through sixth grade, 22 for junior high students and 24 for students in high school.

Murley said this year both high schools had fewer teachers as result of $628,000 in budget reductions announced last spring. In addition, both schools saw enrollment growth. City, which had more classes over the limit than West this year, saw more growth than West, he said.

Murley said these factors led to an increase in the number of classes over the upper class-size limit.

"We continue to look for opportunities to do a better job with our allocation of sections," he said.

Murley said district officials struggle to find a balance between maintaining smaller secondary school classes and offering kids their class preferences.

Officials faced choices this year between capping enrollment in some classes to meet aspirational goals and meeting students' requests to take classes that were barely over the student limit, Murley said.

He also noted that class-size averages for each curricular department at the high schools didn't exceed the upper limits.

"Part of this is remembering that all of these numbers are kids, and that our first responsibility is to try to meet the needs of our kids," he said.

Murley said Tuesday will be an opportunity for officials to gauge whether the Board prefers capping classes' enrollment or allowing classes to exceed aspirational goals.

School Board president Chris Lynch said on Friday that maintaining class sizes at the high schools can be complicated. He said high school and junior-high educators should have leeway to make some of their own decisions about class-size limits.

Lynch said the district at the elementary level likely is seeing improvements when it comes to class sizes.

"We just need to keep up with the progress," he said.

The 2014-15 preliminary data shows that among the district's 19 elementary schools, 16 out of 328 total classes exceeded upper limits.

The data shows one to three classes at Twain, Lincoln, Longfellow, Kirkwood, Coralville Central, Hoover, Van Allen, Weber and Wickham were too large.

Data from 2013-14 shows 23 out of 322 total classes exceeded those goals.

Assistant Superintendent Becky Furlong said the decrease of large elementary school classes came as a result of additional teachers, funded through a $444,000 budget allocation announced alongside last year's budget cuts.

Additionally, she said officials worked more closely with parents on registering their kids for school, which helped officials create a better plan for assigning teachers.

However, officials said a challenge with elementary class sizes can be deciding whether to split students into a large number of small classes or a small number of large classes. For example, officials face situations where a three-way split of students would result in classes that are too small, while a two-way split of students would result in classes that are too large.

Lincoln Elementary principal Ann Langenfeld said that while Lincoln's overall enrollment didn't grow this year, the new distribution of students among grade levels led to three classes being over the class-size limits in second and fourth grade. She said she's also expecting more students at the school this winter.

Langenfeld said that while large classes can pose challenges with space and distribution of the school's work load, staff at Lincoln have done well tackling these challenges.

"We've always pulled together and teamed very, very well," she said.

Second-grade teacher Alesa Case teaches one of the large classes at Lincoln, a class of 26 kids that may soon grow to 27. She said the classroom suffers from a lack of space, and that she has trouble making time to work with all students individually.

Case, a teacher of 24 years, said she would prefer working with a class of 20 second-graders or less. She said with larger classes come increased responsibilities in terms of holding conferences, preparing class materials and checking class work.

"Those are the kinds of things you struggle with, as a teacher," she said.